12.03.2003

won't someone please think of the soldiers

Those are those bizarre little two wheel scooters that balance themselves in some complicated and ingenious way that you don't quite understand but is supposedly one of the most brilliant inventions ever even though it looks kinda goofy and no one can actually imagine people using the darn things. Supposedly, its virtually impossible to fall off the thing. Although our President seems to have managed to fall off the un-fall off-able Segway. (Seems he forgot to turn it on)

But our soldiers? In battle? Do we really need to spend the millions you just know we are spending to figure out that a battlion of Marines puttering around on scooters is not likely to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. Somehow, I just can't picture some exciting and inspiring military combat video game involving scooting about.

And for that matter, what the heck is with all of these exciting and inspiring military combat video games? They seem to be all over the place. Forget the handful of blatent exploitations of the Iraq war. I'm talking about the combat simulators, usually either based in modern day urban warfare situation or in World War II. There just seems to be so many of them. I understood it to a point, butthere is a point when it just feels like too much. My dad is into them, and he actually served in the armed forces. Okay, he served in the Navy and JFK and John Kerry notwithstanding, that's not really a combat activity, but it still seems weird that a vetern would be interested in playing pretend soldier. Still, it seems a bit more understandable for him than for the majority who are playing the games who surely have never even been remotely in combat situations. The weirdest are the games that do multiplayer "death-match" games in their real World War II. That just freaks me out. I mean, I can sorta wrap my head around doing honor to those who fought in defense of freedom in World War II against the Nazi's with video games which chronicle their couragous efforts. Video games aren't just play anymore. They are a way of archiving our culture, our history. But using this as a backdrop to kill people over a high-speed connection just seems weird to me.